The replacement of analog media with digital formats began with recorded music in the early 1980s, and then progressed inexorably through recorded video, still photography, broadcast radio, and broadcast television. In Europe, digital broadcast radio began as a small research project in 1981, at the Institut für Rundfunktechnik, in Munich. At roughly the same time, Japan began exploring digital television. The contrast between the two ostensibly similar projects is important: When consumer and broadcast companies in various countries began pursuing digital-TV technology, developing standards became as much a political process as it was a technological one. Radio, however, escaped that politicization, in large part because regional markets were content to adopt their own standards.
That was a plus early on, because it let developers sidestep the long and contentious standards wars…
